Please join us in celebrating the work of the teams who participated in the Dream University Challenge. Click on their posts below to read more about their projects, explore their creations in Mozilla Hubs, and then vote on the four categories listed below.
Some tips and tricks for exploring the virtual worlds created by the Dream University Challenge teams.
Vote
Vote for your favorite room in the following categories:
Most Creative Concept: Acknowledges the strength of a concept, even if it wasn’t fully realized in the model. See descriptions for UR Haven and Dream Rush Rhees.
Most Desirable Campus Space: What space would you like to see on campus?
Most Out of the Box: Encourages crazy big bold ideas.
Most Likely to Facilitate Connections: Highlights the project that is most successful in thinking through how we connect and creating a practical virtual environment.
The motivating goal for this endeavour is spelt out in the challenge page itself [1] and is
“The current social distancing guidelines mean there aren’t as many opportunities to casually interact with people you pass on campus, less time to catch-up with friends after a club meeting, fewer of the informal interactions that help us build shared experiences and community.”
As we worked on this project together along with our interdisciplinary team of both graduate and undergraduate students, we came back to these words back and forth. We set out to build a virtual space both inspiring as well as functional to our fellow members of the UR community.
Motivation
We are motivated by the imposing yet inspiring structure of the magnificent Rush Rhees library and the associate Eastman Quad around it. We questioned ourselves, what is it that we most missed about campus? The answer to it was simple: The outdoor spaces in and around the Quad.
We were also aware of the fact that not all members of the university community resided on the same campus, also not everyone did share the same opportunities to network and get-in touch with one another during these troubled times. What we were really aiming at by this, is a way to bring around diverse members of our student community – Eastman School of Music (ESM) and Medical School folks as well – to feel connected through events that would reminisce them of the normal times.
The Eastman Quad had been a center of ESM concerts during the summer, which gave us the idea of setting up an open air auditorium to stream ESM performances. We hope a recreation of open study spaces around the Quad as well as the buildings surrounding it, coupled with publicly streamed ESM concerts in a virtual setting would in some way lift the spirits of everyone!
Timeline
Ideation
Design
Implementation
Publishing & Documentation
Design
Our initial design idea was to recreate the area around Rush Rhees Library comprising the Library itself, the surrounding buildings in the Quad and an open air theatre to stream ESM performances. Our effort was to bring the library set-up outdoors right into nature and we believed no other place in the River Campus can be more suited than the beautiful Eastman Quad in front of Rhus Rhees to implement our dream into reality.
We prepared a rough design of our idea that we present here:
Final Design
Aerial View
Target Audience
We aim to target with our design the local University of Rochester student community (both Undergraduate and Graduate students) to cater to the lack of connectivity that has resulted in people feeling cut out of the outside world. They are tied down by being stuck in isolation for most of the time, smaller class year and lack of robust networking environments. So we aim to address the question as to How might we solve the lack of connectivity with diverse student groups that would otherwise integrate the community across multiple colleges and campuses.
Further, we aim to build a space that would enable folks to relax and connect and be more present with each other between classes that enables more casual interactions.
Therefore, we…
Color coded spaces to ensure silent study zones for students
Live music Zone for cheerful folks
Ping-pong table for short breaks and refuel
Most grad students work in the dark either stuck in basement laboratories or in cramped office spaces under artificial light, so a study space in open greens with natural light, helps in bringing spirits up.
Design Procedure
We believed at first that It was okay to dream a little, but we should keep in mind that we want to utilize the outside space and create a community across campuses and how Rush Rhees is the hub of UR. The more we can dream up of how we can do that, would be helpful.
List of Public Assets Used:
Google Polly
List of Assets Acquired from the Dream University Challenge Team:
Morey Hall
Rush Rhees
Eastman statue
Groundboi
Quadfox
Challenges Faced
Working with a diverse group students is always helpful but there were obvious challenges faced
Group comprised of people with diverse talents which helped us navigate all aspects of it but having not being co-located made us solely rely on digital tools
Lack of sustainable internet bandwidth, which resulted in re-doing some of our stuff as they got lost as the internet snapped. Although we were careful to save the model in frequent intervals
Key Takeaways
We navigated how to team work over tools like mozilla having only a single user login
Established connections with the diverse student community which was otherwise challenging
We learnt the importance of teamwork and task distribution according to our own strengths
Above all… Made new friends 🙂
Further Implementations
Since we had to work with a timeline of one week, but in the future we would like to implement a glass ceiling for the reading spaces outside, so that it gives both spatial stability and selectivity to our music audiences. It is also an interesting idea since the glass enclosures would be able to provide insulation in case the weather gets snowy.
References
Welcome Package obtained from the Dream University Challenge website
At the main entrance we have a representation of the yellow jacket with the image of Rocky to create a space that reminds people of campus. The intersection in front that leads to the place symbolizes an ecological environment to welcome everyone. There’ s Pee Wee Herman, the American comedian who will share a word of welcome to everyone on the way to the building. It’s about putting a smile on everyone’s faces and making the place a relaxing and accessible environment. After passing by the actor, there is only one door that leads to this magnificent and collaborative place.
Dining Room
The dining room is an area for people to dine, study, relax, and play all in one cafe. The room’s flooring is covered mostly by dark wood except for the studying zone and the gaming zone to provide an amiable environment for the users. When users first enter the room they will see two employees that will greet them. There is a seating area in the middle of the room with chairs of various materials to accommodate the users’ different tastes. We created a buffet table with a variety of food that allows people to gather and dine. Soft piano music playing from the jukebox is added for a relaxing touch. There is also a space for users to sit and chat around a warm fireplace and TV to make the space feel homey. In the gaming area people can play board games such as monopoly or chess, or hang out with their friends and play some tic-tac-toe on the whiteboard or hangman by using the pen tool in Hubs. All of these activities make the virtual scene interactive and helps people feel connected. There is also a quieter study area that will allow users to use the desktops if needed combined with the whiteboards to express their ideas and collaborate with others.
The Clover Theatre Room
The theatre room, or as we like to call it, the Clover (because it’s shaped like a 3-leafed clover ☘️), is a space where people can go to play online games or watch movies and TV shows together while virtually being in the presence of other people. The dark room simulates a theatre setting for our movie lovers and doubles as an arcade for our videogamers. People can interact by finding a seat and sharing their screen to simulate watching a movie together. The architecture of this room provides many benefits to the people using it. The multiple booths allow for many different screenings to be going on at the same time. The curved walls of the booths provide a level of privacy for watchers so other screenings don’t distract them. The clustered seating allows people to gather in small groups and have intimate conversations, encouraging the feeling of connectedness. When a person first walks into the room, the floor is designed in a way that they can easily survey who and what is at each booth and decide where they would like to go. The abundant space in the middle allows people to easily switch between booths, interact with their friends, or make new ones! The Clover’s architectural design promotes ease of movement, the feeling of connectedness and intimacy, and the opportunity to bond with others over shared interests.
Rooftop
The rooftop not only gives you the opportunity to relax and enjoy snowfall but also offers 4 interactive games for you to have a good time with your friends. In the snowman building area, you can build snowmen by selecting objects and dragging them up, down, sideways, towards and away from you. You can put the pieces together and decorate your own snowman with accessories (don’t worry about running out of pieces, you can build an unlimited number of snowmen fully geared with their bright colored caps and sunglasses! ). There is only one rule to follow in this game- say ‘Hi’! to the person next to you and start a conversation. The instructions board for the snowman building area promotes this lively attitude and helps people connect. The next area is an interactive snowball fighting zone that allows people to pick up the balls and have a snowball fight. The area following is the Snow-Castle-building-area that offers you the chance to be creative and build your own snow castle with friends. In the seating area you can chill and enjoy the snowfall, have a good conversation with friends (or people you just met) and at the same time roast marshmallows. You can even hear the fire cackling. Being close to nature means being in a relaxing environment to have a meaningful conversation with your closest friends. This reminds the students of the times when they were on campus and enjoyed a chilly day out with friends by the fireplace, roasting marshmallows. A deep dive into nostalgia.
Our UR Haven allows students to watch movies in the Clover, dine with friends in the cafe, and interact virtually through snowball fights, snowman building, and marshmallow roasting. The diverse environments of UR Haven promotes connectedness.
Sources
Google, Google, poly.google.com/.
Plorigon, et al. “The Best 3D Viewer on the Web.” Sketchfab, sketchfab.com/.
“From Mind to Design in Minutes.” Tinkercad, www.tinkercad.com/.
Freesound, freesound.org/.
Wil Aiken and Micah Greenberg on Dec 12, 2020, et al. “News Archives.” Campus Times, www.campustimes.org/section/news/.
